I randomly sit down to write out my crazy, and sometimes I forget that I started. This was written on Easter Morning, 2017. I know that so much more was running in my head, this is all that spilled out.
"It's Easter time again. Unlike last year, I'm sitting at my own table, in my own place. My children have their own beds again, and all of the things that have been waiting a year to be unpacked. One year. One solid year of hell and heartache and tears. One full trip around an uncaring sun of deepest despair and pain, I want to sit here and write about how much better I am today. I want to, and I can about a few things, but mostly, I've learned to survive with part of my soul dead.
Eric still isn't allowed to come home, but he is at least out of the jail. Because he is now a convicted sex offender, he isn't allowed to be around the girls. Any kids in fact, as he is now considered the most vile of predators in existence. I want to make bells for us to wear around our necks as we yell " UNCLEAN" to the world, Yes I mean us, as we are one. That was in the vows we made. To cleave unto each other and be as ONE flesh. So his unclean status is also mine. As it should be. If he is guilty of anything, so am I. We are now lepers, outcasts and unwelcome everywhere we go. Him because of the courts, me because I stand with him.
A new Easter season has only brought more questions, more wondering why all our prayers go unheard and unanswered. Truth would set my family free, but those that have that power refuse to use it.
My family has gotten so much smaller. K and E are no longer included in my thoughts of the future. But as the future is a blank black hole, maybe it's better for them."
Easter is long gone, we made it through.
Maybe it IS better for the big girls to be gone, maybe in that same wave length it would be better for the little ones too. I worry about them, about the scars that this life has already inflicted on their tender souls. M has so much fear and anxiety, she is so afraid of displeasing anyone for fear that they will leave her too. L asks me randomly "what happens to us if you die momma?" At first I thought that it was simply the thought process of a 5 year old learning about death. Until I asked her. She is truly worried about who will take care of them if I'm gone, because daddy is already gone. She knows that family is not solid. She is always aware that something can happen, and that there is no safety, only the illusion of it. People you love and count on can be ripped away, others throw the finger at you as they run head first into the Poo Pool.
Let me explain the Poo Pool. M is having a hard time with her torn heart. On the one side, she loves her daddy and misses him so much. She is angry, but that's not a good enough word to use, angry at her older sisters for the lies they used, the damage they left behind in their attempt to break away from the rules that governed our family. Yet she loves them, and gets upset with me for not letting her see K. How do you explain to an eight year old something you yourself don't understand? The facts are, her oldest sister shredded our world because she wanted to be able to drink, drug, smoke and have sex without being told no. How dare we, as her parents, try and instill a sense of right and wrong? So, I thought long and hard and came up with this example to help M understand. In her selfish, narcissistic ways, K looked at a pool filled with refuse, decided that's where she wanted to live and cannon balled in. Our world never stood a chance against the wave of feces that swallowed us. Eric was drowned in the resulting tsunami, he will never be rid of the stains she threw on him as he tried with all his might to save her from herself. I did what any mother would do, I shielded the little girls, and wadded in after her to help bring her back to the safety of solid land. In the process, she almost killed me too, because while I wanted to save her, she is happily splashing in the shit, engulfing all who get near her in her stench. She doesn't see the problem, doesn't notice that while she's doing everything I've ever told her not to do, thinking that she has freedom, the waste that she is marinating in is slowly dissolving her, in essence, it's killing her future, her worth, and her. Her family is dead because of it, E might well die as she can't handle the weight of the lies that K heaped upon her. And M and L can't be allowed near her, because, while I am still waiting on solid ground, waiting to help her when she is through in the poo, they are too small to withstand being splashed by her. It does't change the facts that K is loved by us all, always, it doesn't change the fact that her little sisters want nothing more that to be with all of their family. Until she is ready to start the process of fixing what all she did, wash off the poo you could say, I don't dare let her influence contaminate the little ones, I am guilty of not stopping the poison she inflected on E, the price I pay for that will be eternal. I can't allow it again.
There are days that death seems like the best option, it would free Eric from the children I inflicted him with, cut the ties that still bind me to them. In my mind that works, he won't be free of the stain, the unclean label, but he wouldn't have to be exposed to them because of me. I am only seeing things from the inside of my scrambled brain, because I know that while they have hurt him in ways I can't even understand, they are still his, and he worries abut them every day. Death would also free the little ones from the crazy person their mom has become. Fear and pain are so often masked with anger. I ooze anger, out of the very air around me. I can hide it for a while, while I'm in public mostly, but at home, when I don't have to wear my "normal" mask, it spills out everywhere. I'm ashamed with the weakness that has taken hold of my mind, yet unable to dislodge it. L is worried about what will happen to them, but she doesn't need to be, I've made arrangements for their safety. However, death won't solve anything will it? There are moments that it no longer frightens me, the thought of sweet oblivion is enticing, until a small body climbs on my lap and needs a cuddle.
This life I live is unimaginable. If I ever wrote a book, no one would buy it. Yet I live it, daily, as do my sweet children. I don't know what tomorrow brings, hell I don't even know that the next ten minuets bring. I know that we have a trip planned to spend the 4th of July in Richfield, and while it sounds fun, it also scares me witless. K is there, I need to see her, hug her and kiss her forehead. But... Always there is that word, but. But I don't want to see her, don't want to be reminded of the pain she causes daily. I don't want to be reminded that she has the power to end our suffering, but won't. How do you bring two warring half's of the same heart together? How do I keep this up?
